Counter culture talk courtesy of a Catholic convert.
The West crumbles but, as usual, God’s got a fix.

Sunday, December 08, 2013

The Tragic Cover-Up of Catholic Moral Teaching Continues UPDATED

UPDATED: See my update at end of posting.

Most assuredly, souls are being lost to Hell because the
truth of Holy Mother Church on sexuality continues to be denied
by those very persons who have been ordained for the
task of protecting and passing on the Faith. Their judgment will be
greater.

I had to immediately submit a quickly constructed comment to
Msgr. Pope’s posting because I was so troubled by his omissions. As a
Catholic
I understand why the Church teaches that one may lose their soul
through sins
of omission as well as commission. I truly hope that Msgr. Pope
publishes my comment along with the hundred or so other ones. My
comment to Msgr. Pope was as follows:

Monsignor Pope, I really appreciate your postings but I am
very
disappointed that you could manage to write a piece like this on
marriage
without once mentioning contraception. It’s the elephant in the room
and it
forces every other factor into its own small corner. Are you following
the lead
of Bishops in avoiding the use of the word? Is it because Cardinal
O’Malley
failed altogether in his duty as Bishop to include it in his remarks?
Truly,
this is a disgraceful treatment of the subject at hand and serves only
to
further denigrate and marginalize Church teaching on fertility in
marriage, the
evil of contraception and the mortal danger to souls who practice
sterile sex.
Contraception itself altogether re-defines and perverts the marriage
act and
sows the seeds for such perversions as same-sex “marriage” yet the
silence on
this is deafening in your article.

The open sexual sin which you noted and the accompanying
unchastity
which you noted could not exist in present form without the practice of
contraception. Divorce was simply a symptom and natural outcome of the
widespread use of contraception, and very little, if any, of these
factors
would have touched Catholic marriages if the Bishops had firmly
promoted the
traditional teaching of the Church, as reiterated in Humanae Vitae, and
provided the discipline to their flocks that protection from this evil
deserved. But here we are now, in the devastated vineyard, afraid to
face the
horror—yes, I said horror—of our rejection of God’s truth on human
sexuality.

Out of wedlock children are hardly possible on any
noteworthy scale
without contraception; epidemics of cohabitation, pre-marital sex,
promiscuity
likewise.

It’s wonderful to talk of chastity and extol the beauties
and precious
fruits of that virtue but it’s absolutely disingenuous to altogether
avoid the
topic of contraception! God help us! The spiritual blindness is
breathtaking!

And again, God help us, but of all the bafflegab about
factors fuelling
the marriage and family crisis, finances should be the very last item
to make
such a list. Again, it must be difficult only for the blind to not see
that the
subject of finances only begs the question of a choice to use
contraception.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? How then can finances make it
to no.
3 spot?

The Cardinal has no problem talking about the “cohabitation
mentality”
and I suppose that’s because we didn’t have a Humanae Vitae on the
subject of
cohabitation. We did, however, have one about contraception. You noted,
“Cardinal O’Malley says, The whole notion of family is so undercut by
the
cohabitation mentality.” How is it possible that the Cardinal could not
bring
himself to mention the contraceptive mentality? God have mercy!

It is no wonder the Church is practically irrelevant to our
society at
large. We refuse to share with the world one of God’s most precious
truths
about sexuality, the very truth that could help them grasp one of the
major
evils of our time and repair a gaping wound in society. We keep it a
secret so
the world will not condemn us for our own unbelief!

And then how is it possible to
bring up the subject of catechesis and not mention the reformation we
truly
need in our thinking regarding the role that Church teaching on
contraception
should take? Yes indeed, “People struggle to figure all this out” but
I’m
afraid most of the struggles are of our making because we refuse to
address the
elephant sitting next to us. How shameful and pathetic.

Monsignor you are a priest of some influence in America and
your
posting has done a shocking disservice to Catholics and to the truth.
In my
opinion the proper penance would be at least one posting, if not a full
series,
correcting and amending this posting. Your posting only gives cover to
40 or
more years of rebellion by church leaders—and the sheep that follow
them—to the truth of Church teaching.

If you would care to take the time to see what an honest
discussion on
this subject is like, why not read this article?

UPDATE:Msgr.
Pope did publish my comment, along with his own reaction. He thought my
remarks were "nasty" and accused me of Bishop-bashing as well as fellow
Christian-bashing. He suggested I take my note to my confessor, see
what he thinks and do the required penance. I replied in brief but he
did not publish what I sent along. I told him that I stand by my
remarks and that Bishops and Priests were not above criticism if they
denied or perverted the Faith since their actions in such cases sent
people to Hell and corrupted society. I also asked him if he would be
so kind as to respond to my charges in a thorough rational manner
rather than a simple outright dismissal of my entire remarks. Finally,
I advised him that my confessor is well aware of all my positions as
outlined in my comments to his posting and I undertake all penances prescribed (joyfully!).